Two Tips For Recruiting Healthcare Professionals

The Baby Boomer Generation is approaching 76 million people, according to the Pew Research Center, and as they all age into their 60s, the need for healthcare professionals will skyrocket. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the healthcare industry to rapidly expand and outpace all other job needs by 2024, which means competition will be fierce for your company to recruit the best talent available.

There are two essential ways to keep in line with industry trends to ensure you get the candidate you need:

1. Expand your recruiting channels
It will be more important than ever for HR professionals to recruit candidates before they receive their diploma. Every other company vying for top talent is having the same issue—a shortage of resources. By getting your foot in the door early, you have a larger pool of potential employees to work with. If you haven’t already, consider starting an internship at your company to help identify top talent. During their internship, you can mentor and encourage them to perform to the standards you set. This will help you determine who will be a good fit for your company. 

“Some hospitals and nursing homes will email us job opportunities, and we post them for students and alumni,” Doreen Stiskal, chair in the department of physical therapy at Seton Hall University, told Monster. “And at least half of our students get jobs where they or their classmates did a three-month rotation in clinical internship.”

Opening your company’s doors to healthcare professionals in training can give you a step above your competition when it comes to recruitment once they get their degrees.

The growing need for more healthcare professionals is already underway.

2. Be specific in recruiting
Stiskal told Monster nearly all of their graduates found jobs immediately out of school. Because the talent pool is so small, HR professionals need to rethink the way they recruit. In the past, you may have been able to take your time looking through résumés, but that’s not the case anymore.

Use an applicant tracking system (ATS) to quickly sort résumés based on how well they match the job listing. This speeds up the process and allows you to focus in on candidates for niche positions much more quickly than having to read through each résumé.

If you’re looking to fill a large number of positions at once, though, Anne Greb, director of the graduate program in genetic counseling at Sarah Lawrence University, advises widening your parameters.

“Many providers are looking for experience, but there are not enough experienced practitioners out there to fill every opening,” Greb told Monster. This harks back to using your internship program to provide candidates your company hires with the knowledge needed to perform their job independently sooner.

Try to get to the interview stage as quickly as possible. The candidates you prefer for a job opening are most likely being vetted by a number of other firms. Use an ATS to narrow down the field to those you want to hire, and quickly begin the interview process so you can put an offer on the table before your competitors do.